CORPORATE
We are Proud of
OUR WORK HERE With four production units in Serbia, LEONI is the walking advertisement for Serbia as a promising investment location. The company is proud of its operations here which are mirrored in excellent export figures, the largest number of employees in the sector, and its devotion to the local communities and their youth
CLEMENS SACHS Managing Director, LEONI Wiring Systems Southeast d.o.o.
F
oreign investors in Serbia are the best promoters of the business environment and investment conditions. Indeed, that is true for LEONI Wiring Systems Southeast, the only investor in the country with four plants in various Serbian cities. LEONI is also the biggest industrial employer in Serbia which continues to hire new workers, and one of the largest exporters. These two facts alone speak loud enough about LEONI seeing Serbia as a promising investment spot. Yet not all of the experiences of Mr Clemens Sachs, Managing Director of LEONI Wiring Systems Southeast d.o.o., are as positive. LEONI expects to continue expanding the
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Focus
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volume of its business operations and employ new people, and this might be a challenge given the migration trends. Furthermore, there are some perquisites that need to be fulfilled if the business is to run smoothly, including public transportation service availability in Kraljevo and partially in Niš.
STRATEGY
Our CSR strategy is to support mostly children and youth, namely to help nurseries, schools, children hospitals and orphanages. In 10 years, we invested over EUR 400,000 in various CSR projects
After Prokuplje, Doljevac and Niš, Kraljevo is the fourth town in Serbia in which Leoni is going to open a state-of-the-art factory, which will employ 5,000 workers by the end of 2023. Are you satisfied with the company’s overall business results in Serbia? — Me personally and we, as LEONI Serbia, are very proud of and really satisfied with the results we have achieved starting from 2009 until now. As you said, we opened four plants here, and as far as I know, there is no other foreign or domestic company that has four production units in the country. Currently, we are the biggest industrial employer in Serbia and we are continuing to hire new workers, which sounds promising for all those people looking for a stable and secure job. I would proudly like to share with you the information that the Kraljevo plant already has 1,000 workers and it has been only one year since it opened. Also, our export figures and results made us one of the biggest exporters in Serbia, which is also a reason to be proud of. On the other hand, the reason for not being completely satisfied and a bit concerned is the critical labour market in Serbia in terms of migration and fluctuation, which is going to affect our business too. What is your cooperation with the local government in the places where you have factories in Serbia like and what else can be further improved? — From the moment we came to Serbia, we
